Cocoon

Jordi Gibert, Aleix Gil and Alba Robles, Spain

Explanatory Note

A cocoon is an envelope serving as a covering to the pupal stage of what is protected inside. A cocoon is where the change begins: after a short period whatever was inside becomes something completely different.

Cocoon, hanging under the Dobryninsky Bridge, has to be a place to bring the social relations of the Yaroslavl inhabitants to a new level. It has to be the place to cook a new society where co-operation between people has to vertebrate the way citizens think, live and interact.

A cocoon is ephemeral. A light shell and shelter that offers what is needed to begin a new life, something natural and logically adapted to its environment.

Cocoon, open to the whole neighborhood, has to be a small intervention with large effects. It has to be easy to be built by anybody, using affordable materials and standard construction systems.

It has to offer the possibility to re-adapt to new uses modifying its shape and to be re-used in any other way when it doesn’t have to be a cocoon anymore.

Cocoon has to be cheap and not only economically but also ecologically. The use of autochthon materials and the possibility to be auto- constructed make it become something ephemeral that won’t leave any traces further than a social change.

A cocoon is the beginning, the starting point of the next generation. Whoever leaves its cocoon travels to new horizons and recreates what was learned. This expansion brings new cocoons to other places creating an unstoppable exponential growth.

Cocoon, starting silently in a hidden place, has to be the origin of something bigger. Copying it to other bridges or exporting it to any abandoned place will bring more and more cocoons to our cities.

Borderless and just guided by whatever the citizens wish it to be, cocoon is the beginning of something unpredictable that has to change the system as much as we allow it to.

A cocoon is also a place to come back. Coming back to the origins, always looking for further changes is usually done by everybody. To grow, to recreate or reproduce or just to feed the future generation are always good excuses to come back.

Cocoon is the place you have to go to help other people evolve. The place to teach and learn, to show and explain or just to find other people interested in your same projects.

Cocoon is the home where the children grow and where the elders come back, the link between this exhausted society and the future, a future that can be whatever we make it become.

Cocoon is the place to start the evolution and the time is now.

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Author:

Jordi, Aleix and Alba are licensed architects by the technical university of Catalonia (UPC-ETSAV) since 2013. Since graduating they have participated in different competitions under the pou[arch] platform, as they are part of that team.

Pou[arch] is a multidisciplinary platform of young architects, united in order to face design and architecture challenges, raised through the participation on contests and developing everyday life projects.